Researcher Collects Candid Interviews with Female Gulf Veterans

The Huffington Post (8/13, Kors) interviews University of Richmond professor Laura Browder, the author of “Her Best Shot,” a historical look at American women and guns, who’s now at work on “When Janey Comes Marching Home,” which tells the stories of female veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Browder says she began the project as a corrective to the public impression of women in combat during the Gulf War. Browder noted that two best-known female veterans from the Gulf Wars were Jessica Lynch, whose time as a prisoner in Iraq was “pure fiction” as described by the Pentagon, according to Browder, and Lynndie England, the reservist later convicted of mistreating prisoner at Abu Ghraib prison.

“For me,” Browder said, “what those two stories meant is that there were 235,000 female soldiers whose stories weren’t being told.” While women in the military are officially barred from combat, but in a war without clearly-defined front lines, “the ban on combat is meaningless.”

Browder’s candid interviews deal with issues ranging from motherhood, PTSD, sexual harassment, reconnecting with family, and dealing with sexism among their fellow soldiers and commanders, and will be on display at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery till September 5.